Software purchase will fill the gaps
Most of the county’s law enforcement and emergency response agencies will be able to share information more easily thanks to a new technology purchase the Hays County Commissioners Court approved at its last meeting.
Jeff McGill, information technology director for the county, told the commissioners that the county already uses products from Tyler Technologies, the company providing the new hardware and software. With the eventual centralization of dispatch services for nearly every law enforcement agency and fire or EMS service in the county, McGill said, the ability to share information will become more important.
“We found out really fast that it’s only achievable if we’re on a unified platform,” he told the commissioners.
The new system provides that shared platform, McGill said. It will allow “seamless” information sharing among numerous agencies, help to streamline the dispatching process, alert first responders to hazards in the area, provide a history of emergency calls to a location, track the chain of custody for evidence, and even keep track of the equipment and personnel on board specific emergency response vehicles to determine which vehicles should be sent to a particular call. Corrections officers can use information in the new system because it can track inmates’ criminal and behavioral histories and any gang affiliations. If there are numerous arrests occurring, the platform can be used to alert jail personnel so they know how many people to expect and whether any arrestees need medical attention. The records management aspect of the new platform will save the district attorney’s office some time in gathering data, because it is already collected, and can alert the district attorney about any new evidence that emerges in a case.
The platform is meant to track data about criminal incidents “from the time of the 911 call through the court case,” McGill said.
“It trickles down through the whole criminal justice system,” he said.
Currently, Hays County has one software platform for computer-aided dispatch and a separate platform for its criminal justice system, with Kyle on its own system, he said.
“Right now, we don’t really have any sharing of information,” McGill said.
At the commissioners court meeting, David Smith from San Marcos/Hays EMS described the current systems as outdated.
“Imagine taking a TV from 1980 and trying to run your iPhone through it,” he said.
The new software will put all of these systems on a shared platform, McGill explained: the Hays County Sheriff’s Office, the county constables, fire, Kyle police and fire, Buda police and fire, the North and South Hays County fire departments, Wimberley Fire/EMS and San Marcos/ Hays EMS. McGill said if the San Marcos and Texas State police departments decide to join in — they would only have to pay for licensing, he said — then Hays County would become the first county with all of its emergency services on one shared platform.
During the commissioners court meeting, Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler, the police chiefs from Kyle and Buda, a spokesman for all the fire chiefs in Hays County and Smith from San Marcos/Hays EMS spoke in favor of the new system.
McGill said he became aware of the shared-platform technology in 2010, and the first meeting among county personnel and other interested parties to discuss the technology happened in 2013. Now the funding is secured — through a grant from the governor’s office for $899,150 is helping to pay for the technology — and the purchase is approved. The original date the county set to get the system in place was September 2019, but that date has been pushed back and a new completion date has not been set.
** A previous version of this article said the creation of a new centralized location for dispatch services, that was initially slated to be built and open by September 2019, has been pushed back and a new completion date has not been set.
